


Voicemail

by sweetheartdean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coda, Gen, M/M, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-07 22:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12242043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetheartdean/pseuds/sweetheartdean
Summary: Dean develops a brand new coping mechanism.





	Voicemail

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spnhiatuscreations. Shout-out to sexystripedtie for betaing and general support. <3

It’s not like Sam says “you should keep busy” out loud. But his long, lingering, puppy-dog looks and the bunch of cases piled up on Dean’s table pretty much say everything for him already. Print-outs, cut-outs, scattered letters that used to make sense at some point. Two people torn to shreds here, a person drained of all their blood there, evil going bump in the night.

The times when Dean can’t stop thinking about the people that the vics inevitably left behind are the worst. 

Sam pushes his laptop across the kitchen table as Dean stares down his eggs ‘n bacon. “Check it out,” he says softly, like if he talks too loudly, Dean’s gonna shake apart. “Looks like a werewolf gone rogue down in Idaho.”

Dean nods. Cool.

“Can you dial that lady, uh, what’s her name…” Sam trails away, scrunching up his forehead in thought. Dean pushes a stubborn piece of bacon around the plate, once, twice, there and back again. “Christy? She hunts up there, maybe she’s already on top it.”

“Sure.” Sam just wants him busy and talking to people, but he doesn’t say it, because the Winchesters don’t talk about things. Well, that, and what use is it saying that when they both know what’s going on? ‘Sides, Sam also needs something to cling to. It’s not like Dean’s oblivious here. He would’ve been there for Sam if it wasn’t for the heavy lingering feeling that makes everything move twice as slow and ten times as far away.

Sam’s still looking at him like Dean’s a particularly unruly puppy he’s training with oodles of patience, and Dean unlocks his phone.

The line trills and trills, on and on, and just as Dean’s about to hang up, it crackles and sends him to voicemail.

“This is my voicemail. Make your voice a mail.” A beep.

Dean couldn’t hang up faster. 

“What happened?” Sam looks up from his plate, eternal crease still lodged in between his eyebrows.

“Wrong number,” Dean says. Cas’ gruff voice still echoes in his ears. 

“I see."

Dean checks his phone. Looks like his finger slipped and he accidentally dialed the number next to it that he didn’t have the heart to delete.

He decides right there not to call the number ever again.

It only takes a heavy case and a few bottles of booze for Dean to drunk-dial. 

"This is my voicemail," Cas’s voice softly croons like a lullaby. Almost like he’s right there, frowning over an obscure reference like he’s contemplating a chess move, almost like he’s close enough to swing your arm over his shoulder and muss up his hair. "Make your voice a mail."

“Hey,” Dean starts, slurry-drunk. “Uh, you won’t get this. This is dumb. But, uh, I saw a chick in a trenchcoat today and…” And she was hot, actually -- but the only thing Dean could zero to was her outfit. It wasn’t even a similar trenchcoat. Didn’t hang off her shoulders like it didn’t fit her right or anything.

And yet.

“Yeah. She had a dog with her. One of these ridiculous tiny teacup-sized things. You know how I feel about ‘em. I mean, if you gotta own a dog, it better be a serious…” He shakes his head. “A real mutt. Sam got excited anyway. I swear, show this guy any dog… woulda started wagging his own tail if he had one.”

Dean rubs his forehead. 

“You would've liked that dog too, I guess. You like every animal you see. Big or small. Even the ugly-ass bald cats. And, I mean... I guess that dog was kinda cute. If you’re into Terriers at all.”

The phone beeps to announce Dean’s gone over the rambling limit, pedal to the metal. He doesn’t call back. Not immediately, anyway.

A few days later, he sees an artisanal hipster burger joint that Cas would’ve absolutely gotten excited over. Calling and telling him about soothes the sting a little.

A case that involves murder bees. Cas needs to hear about that.

Dean calls again. And again. Sneaks away in between the interviewing witnesses and calls while Sam walks off to get them food, leaving him alone in the car with the phone clutched in his hands like a lifeline.

Eventually, Dean’s little voicemail addiction gets nipped in the bud with a “The mailbox is full and cannot accept messages at this time. Goodbye”. He stands still in the middle of his bedroom like he’s never been there before, and stares at his useless phone for a beat, wide-eyed and white-knuckled.

The phone flies into the wall but doesn’t even smash. Gets a cobweb of cracks along the screen, but still glows, like everything is fine and dandy.

“What’s going on?” Sam walks in, rubbing his eye, all drowsy and whatnot. The part of Dean that isn’t busy weathering the storm of all the grief he postponed until later feels bad over waking Sam up like that.

“Nothing. Go sleep,” Dean throws over his shoulder. 

Sam sighs, world-weary, I-am-tired-of-your-bullshit-Dean obvious in the way he shifts from foot to foot. “You just decided you were overdue for a new phone,” he says, teasing braided with concern in an especially annoying voice lilt. Or maybe Dean just finds everything annoying right now.

Dean can’t come up with a lie on the spot like that under Sam’s heavy gaze, a light shone into Dean’s eyes in an interrogation room. Doesn’t wanna up and shove Sam out of his room, either. The world’s a little heavy to carry all by himself. And maybe he chose to collapse over letting someone else hold him up for a goddamn second one too many times. He’s gettin’ way too old for an extra date with the cold hard ground.

“I’ve been calling Cas,” Dean shrugs, nonchalantly, yanno, who doesn’t call their dead best friend over and over and leave pathetically mundane voicemails about honey and good beer and Zeppelin songs that come up on the radio? “And, uh— the mailbox ran out of space. ‘S all.”

Sam’s face contorts in every stage of grief ran through his eyes on high-speed. His lips quiver like ripples on the water.

“Oh,” he says, disarmed, and puts on that soft look, that look he puts on for traumatized kids, injured tiny animals, and big brothers who are messed up to hell and back.

“Don’t.” Dean shakes his head. “Just… just don’t.” The phone lies at his feet like a miniature gravestone. A Terrier of gravestones.

Cas woulda loved that dumb dog. His whole freaking face would light up. Dean hopes there are animals out there, wherever it is angels go after.

“I know you lost him too,” Dean finally says. “I don't wanna dump all my crap on you, man. I’ll be fine. One day at a time.”

Sam sighs and picks the phone up. “I’ll fix this.”

“The screen? I got it.”

“Nah. I’ve hacked into the phone company before,” Sam says, easy. “Maybe they made a mistake and accidentally gave this number a bigger mailbox. Could happen to anyone. A couple misplaced ones and zeroes…”

Sometimes, as much as Dean hates to admit it, his little brother goes right from annoying to awesome.

“Thanks,” Dean says, and to his pride, he doesn’t even sound too choked up. Maybe just a little. He takes the phone out of Sam’s fingers.

“I miss you here, man,” Dean says in his next voicemail, like an admission of guilt. 

He doesn’t say anything else, but that’s already more than the Winchesters say, ever. They understand each other without words.

The look that Sam gives him is the look he saves for grieving widows.


End file.
